UPDATE: Professor Mark Goodacre actually addressed my question and says that he’s in agreement with both EP Sanders and NT Wright, but more so with Sanders.

Like many of my fellow bloggers, I too received an email from one Meg Reck about Professor Goodacre’s online Q&A:

Dear Mr. Robinson,

I thought the readers of your blog might be interested in this. Mark Goodacre at NT Blog has agreed to hold live, online “office hours” this Friday, Sept. 18, at noon EDT on Duke’s Ustream page: http://www.ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Professor Goodacre will be giving his take on “the New Testament in the news” — and responding to questions from anyone who submits them online.

So here’s my question for Professor Goodacre:

According to Bishop NT Wright, Have we been misreading Paul on the doctrine of Justification since Luther’s polemic with Rome?

I hope to get this question to the courageous Duke professor. We’ll see.

Try this video.

N.T. Wright seems to have two main novelties, neither of which are really new: 1) the view that Paul is looking at justification as future and righteousness as “covenant membership/faithfulness”, and 2) the holistic Gospel that redeems all of Creation, not just individuals. Thus, the Gospel means a redemption of Creation, culture, economy, etc.

Watch the video, it’s well worth your time.

I just came across the new FS for EP Sanders (See HERE).

Contributors include: Fabian E. Udoh, D. Moody Smith, E. P. Sanders, Jouette M. Bassler, Shaye J.D. Cohen, Albert I. Baumgarten, Cynthia M. Baker, Israel J. Yuval, Martin Goodman, Eric M. Meyers, Jürgen Zangenberg, Seán Freyne, Peter Richardson, Adele Reinhartz, Paula Fredriksen, Stephen Hultgren, John P. Meier, Craig C. Hill, Heikki Räisänen, Richard B. Hays, Stanley K. Stowers, John M. G. Barclay.

Quite a list of who’s who in Judaism and NT studies.

Here is the description

For nearly four decades, E. P. Sanders has been the foremost scholar in shaping and refocusing scholarly debates in three different but related disciplines in New Testament studies: Second Temple Judaism, Jesus and the Gospels, and Pauline studies. This collection of essays by an impressive array of colleagues and former students presents original scholarship that extends—or departs from—the research of Sanders himself. Both apologists and dissenters find their place in this volume, as the authors actively debate Sanders’s innovative positions on central issues in all three disciplines.

The introductory group of essays includes a substantive intellectual autobiography by E. P. Sanders himself. The next three parts examine in turn the three areas in which Sanders made his important contributions. The essays in part 2 engage Sanders’s notion of “common Judaism.” Those in part 3 deal with issues that Sanders raised respecting the historical Jesus and the Gospels. And the essays in part 4 debate Sanders’s contention that participation in Christ, rather than justification by faith, is the central theme of Paul’s soteriology. The volume concludes with a bibliography of Sanders’s works.

Continuing this series based on Michael Thompson’s booklet, published by Grove Books.

Three Advocates of the New Perspective

1.  E.P. Sanders

In his 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Sanders argued, on the basis of a survey of relevant Jewish literature, that the Judaism of Paul’s day was not a religion of works-based righteousness.  The law was not a means of gaining acceptance with God, but law-keeping was rather a thankful response to God’s mercies.  Thus, the law functions not in terms of ‘getting in’ to the covenant, but of ’staying in’.  Sanders calls this ‘covenantal nomism’.  God would indeed reward those who lived by the law, but salvation itself was a matter of divine grace.

For Sanders, when Paul became a Christian he did not move from ‘plight’ (I am a guilty sinner) to ’solution’ (Jesus is my Saviour) but rather the opposite – from solution to plight (Christ is the solution; therefore there must have been a problem!).  For Paul the problem was not that Judaism lacked grace, but that it lacked Jesus.

Sanders has been criticised for selective use of sources, and for failing to understand Paul’s logic.  Some argue that merit-based theology can be found in the Jewish literature of Paul’s day.  And, in case, it is quite possible that Jews of Paul’s day misunderstood the note of grace in the Old Testament, and took it to teach a religion of merit.

Nevertheless, Sanders has at least debunked a caricature of Judaism that led some 20th-century German scholars to regard it as an inferior, legalistic religion, an attitude that fuelled anti-semitism.

Nevertheless, we are left with a number of references in which Paul contrasts law and grace, works and faith, and we need to know what to do with these, Gal 2:16; 3:2,5,10; Rom 3:20, 27; 4:2,4,6; 9:11;,32; 11:6.

2.  J.D.G. Dunn

Whereas Sanders is somewhat of a sceptic with regard to the Christian faith, Dunn writes as a committed believer.  Although critical of some aspects of Sanders’ work James Dunn has adopted other elements and built on them.  With Krister Stendahl, Dunn sees Paul’s Damascus Road experience less a conversion (resulting in a change in the basic structure of his religion), more a vocation (to preach Christ as Messiah).  It was also a change from Jewish exclusivism (that insisted on keeping the law) to Gentile inclusivism (that did not insist on law-keeping.

Dunn’s view is that the ‘works of the law’ that Paul opposed in his letter to the Galatians primarily referred to ‘boundary markers’ of Jewishness such as circumcision, Gal 2:3,7-9,12; 5:2,3,6,11; 6:12,13,15., keeping the religious calendar, Gal 4:10, and observing the food laws, Gal 2:12-14.  Thus, in Dunn’s view, Paul was not referring to moral behaviour generally, but to certain religious practices.

Today, we take it for granted that Christians can eat bacon and work on Saturdays.  But for many early Christians, who had no Bible apart from the Old Testament, it would have seemed quite clear: if Gentiles want to follow the Messiah, let them become Jews.

One problem with Dunn’s thesis is that not all texts that refer to ‘works’ can be limited to ‘boundary markers’ or ‘badges’ of Jewishness.  See Rom 2:17ff; 3:9-20; 11:6; Tit 3:5.  Indeed, Dunn now concedes that the word can have a wider meaning.  Moreover, Paul does seem to speak of the ‘boasting’ of moral accomplishment (rather than of religious practices) in Rom 4:2; 1 Cor 1:29; 4:7; Eph 2:9.  Other passages, such as, Rom 4:4-5; Eph 2:8-10 and Phil 3:9 also seem to fit the ‘Old Perspective’ better than the ‘New’.

3.  N.T. (Tom) Wright

Like Dunn, Wright is a committed Christian (indeed, he regards himself as an evangelical).  Wright accepts the fundamental theses of Sanders and Dunn as outlined above, even though he is critical of some aspects of the work of both scholars.  He agrees that Paul’s pre-occupation in his letters in not how individuals get saved, but what defines the people of God.

Wright has focussed attention of the meaning of ‘justification’ for Paul.  He thinks our understanding has been clouded and narrowed by controversies between Pelagius and Augustine, and between Erasmus and Luther over human effort and grace.   Reformed theology regards justification as about how one is accepted before God: acquitted and given a new status of righteousness.  Wright argues that justification is not only judicial, but also covenantal (reflecting God’s covenant faithfulness in his determination to put the world to rights), and eschatological (having as much to do with future deliverance as past acquital).  Justification is not about how a person becomes a member of the people of God; it is about how one knows that s/he is a member of that community.

Unlke Sanders, Wright sees Paul as moving from plight to solution.  However, the ‘plight’ is the covenant people’s perceived state of exile.  Even though the Jews had returned to the promised land, because of the Roman occupation they saw themselves as still being in exile, awaiting God’s deliverance.  Christ brought that deliverance, reflecting God’s covenant faithfulness and dealing with the sin that caused the exile in the first place.

Wright’s position has attracted considerable support.  However, many are unconvinced that the exile motif is as important and pervasive in the New Testament as he thinks.  Also, many evangelicals are concerned about his re-shaping of the doctrine of justification, regarding this as inconsistent with the relevant texts (see esp. 1 Cor 1:30; 2 Cor 5:21).

I am currently trying to narrow down the focus of my PhD research topic, which has proven to be quite the endeavor.  Admittedly, part of the struggle was the lack of a “plan-B” when I learned that my original topic had to be set aside.  However, a “plan-B” quickly emerged–not only through stimulating conversations with my astute supervisors but also (quite honestly) out of necessity–and this recent “plan” is beginning to take on a nice shape.  The next few weeks will be crucial in this regard, and depending on how they go, either I will provide the details of the project here in this blog or I will announce the hunt for a “plan-C”.  

In the midst of working on my current proposed idea, I have had to explore various writings related to a buffet of scholarly issues.  One of the key issues that will most likely become relevant for my topic is the so-called “New Perspective on Paul”–NPP, for short.  (I say “so-called” simply because the framework for this perspective was established just over 30 years ago; and in the scholarly world, a 30-year-old idea is an academic Methuselah).  The inherent difficulty with this is that the amount of literature on the NPP is enormous;[1] thus, to even begin to wrestle with current scholarly positions on the NPP proves to be an undertaking in itself.  What is more, a portion of this material tends to be polemical mud-slinging; thus, the researcher occasionally will have to wade through the sloppy shrapnel in order to find clues of what was being maintained.  

A Quick Summary
The key players for the NPP are: Krister Stendahl, E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright.  (I’m going to side-step dealing with Dunn and Wright in this summary).  In the early 1970s, Stendahl[2] argued that the apostle Paul’s struggle with faith vs. Law (Torah) was being perceived through the lens of Martin Luther’s personal battle with grace/faith vs. works (of the Church).  In other words, because Luther was struggling with issues of legalism and works-righteousness being touted by the Church, Luther read Paul’s struggle (namely in Romans 7) in the same way.  Stendahl argued that this is not the proper way to understand Paul–nor is it the right way to do historical and/or theological investigations.  This then opened the door to a slew of questions about the dilemma that Paul was indeed facing between faith and Law.  The key question was: should the post-Reformation portrait of a legalistic, works-righteousness Judaism be viewed as normative, or is there something behind that portrait that needs to be seen and understood?

The work of E.P. Sanders has been viewed as the “bombshell” (Don Carson) dropped on this discussion, and it had serious implications on New Testament scholarship.  In his massive volume, Paul and Palestinian Judaism,[3] Sanders sought to reveal that the traditional views of an overly legalistic, work-righteousness Judaism were not only untrue in the main but also representative of a very small fringe of Jewish writings from a later period.  In place of this, Sanders argued that Judaism had been primarily a religion of salvation by faith/grace–because that was the nature of the covenant with Abraham–and that works of the Law were only performed for the sake of “staying in” the covenant.  (Sanders would coin the phrase, “covenantal nomism” for this notion).  In other words, an Israelite did not do the works of Torah in order to be saved (or, declared righteous); an Israelite did works of Torah in order to maintain his or her (righteous) status within the covenant.  It was only in later traditions that the idea of being saved (or, declared righteous) by works emerged–namely in texts like 2 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch.  Thus, for Sanders, it would be more likely for the apostle Paul, as a devout Pharisee, to be in harmony with covenantal nomistic ideas within mainline Judaism.[4]  

A Perennial Concern
However, one of the major sticking points in Sanders’ expose of covenantal nomism is this statement:

It seems likely that Paul’s thought did not run from plight to solution, but rather from solution to plight. The attempts to argue that Romans 7 shows the frustration which Paul felt during his life as a practising Jew have now been mostly given up, and one may rightly and safely maintain that the chapter cannot be understood in this way.  The chapter describes, rather, the pre-Christian or un-Christian life as seen from the perspective of faith.  It may be further observed on the basis of Phil. 3 that Paul did not, while “under the law”, perceive himself to have a “plight” from which he needed salvation (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 443)

This argument from Sanders raised the obvious question: so, what then is Paul arguing for and/or against in his letters–namely, Galatians and Romans?  What is the “solution” and what is the “plight”?  The simplistic (and slightly overgeneralized) answer is: for Paul (according to Sanders), the “solution” is that faith in Christ is the only means of salvation, and the “plight” is that the Law is not that means–i.e. the Law is not faith.  The issue therefore is not faith-righteousness vs. legalistic-works-righteousness; instead, the issue is the ramifications of the new covenant established in Christ.  So, for Sanders, the “solution” is that covenant membership is brought about by faith/grace; yet, the nature of the (new) covenant is characterized by one’s relationship with Christ, which is freedom from the Law.  The “plight”, therefore, is that the nature of the former covenant–i.e. maintaining the Law–has been replaced because of the establishment of the new covenant in Christ.  

This concept has not been without its opponents.  In a fairly recent article,[5] Paul F.M. Zahl has adamantly argued that the entire notion of moving from “solution to plight” is completely foreign (or, “untrue to life” as he says).  For Zahl, this concept is not only untenable a posteriori, but it also defies basic logic.  His a posteriori argument is buttressed by the idea that those who work in helping ministries (or, professions) know that people do not deal with personal conflict in a “solution-to-plight” manner.  It just does not make (logical) sense to deal with problems in that way; thus, it does make sense to use the same logic with regard to Paul.  However, I think Zahl is being a bit hasty (I dare say, reactionary) in his critique of the NPP as a whole on this score.  Zahl may be right in what he says with regard to the specific “solution-to-plight” construction that Sanders provides; however, what Sanders establishes is not necessarily representative of how the NPP developed.  In fact, oddly enough, Zahl does not mention these developments (i.e. improvements) to Sanders’ original argument by scholars like Dunn and Wright.

Another Look
The idea of moving from “solution to plight” is not as strange as it might seem if understood properly.  Zahl’s employment of helping ministries/professions to support his argument works only if the context is relatively safe.  In an American context (particularly), a person who acknowledges Christ as Savior is relatively safe in how life is lived after that acknowledgement.  Generally speaking, there is little fear of how life will be affected as result of that that confession of faith (i.e. “solution”).  This is because the cultural context is not overly resistant to those who make such a choice. However, the American cultural context is not representative of other cultural contexts.  Ravi Zacharias has told of instances where he presented the gospel in foreign cultures (i.e. non-Christian ones) and that belief in Christ as Savior (i.e. “solution”) generated cultural struggles with how one now lives as a Christian in a pagan culture (i.e. “plight”).  While this analogy has its faults (as all analogies do), it does highlight the fact that “solution” can lead to “plight” in particular cultural contexts; thus, it is not as “untrue to life” as Zahl claims.

The better (though still limited) analogy for Paul is the logical one, which Zahl believes does not exist.  In book 7 of Plato’s Republic, we are told of a group of prisoners who are bound in a cave with only two sources of light: natural sunlight streaming in from an entrance behind them, and a fire on a large cleft above and behind them.  On the wall in front of the prisoners are shadowy-reflections of a puppet-show taking place by a group of people near the fire.  The shadows are only those of the puppets and not the ones using the puppets.  Because the prisoners see the shadows on the wall, and because they hear voices from behind, their natural conclusions is that the voices are those of the shadows and that the shadows are real people.  Then, for whatever reason, we see that one prisoner is released and allowed to leave the cave.  This prisoner comes into the sunlight where he is met by another who tells the freed prisoner about the shadows cast upon the wall (i.e. “solution”).  The freed prisoner is then confronted with the task of returning to the cave and revealing what he now knows to be true so that the other prisoners can experience the same liberating freedom.  However, in revealing such truths, the freed prisoner is battling preconditioned ideas of reality about what is seen and understood to be taking place before the eyes of the other prisoners (i.e. “plight”).  

I use Plato’s allegory of the cave not to draw exact parallels with Paul or to make inferences from the details.  I use it to highlight the overall logic of the allegory as supporting the idea that “solution to plight” is not a logically foreign concept (as Zahl asserts).  There are several “plights” and several “solutions” to be found in the allegory; but only one set makes the most sense of the story as a whole.  Therefore, the issue ultimately comes down to how one understands the terminology and which categories are being referred to by the key terms.  It also comes down to how one understands what is actually taking place with the argument itself.  For Paul, it is not so much about creating a strange logical framework in which he can make his argument; instead, it is Paul’s use of the strange framework in order to reveal the profundity and power of the argument.  To state this in another way, and to borrow from a scholar who is far more able-minded than myself: 

[Paul] rather proclaims the “solution” in his thematic opening in Romans 1.16-17 and in that proclamation presupposes the human “plight” which it addresses.  The very manner in which he announces his gospel in terms of the demand for faith, the inclusion of “the Greek,” the (paradoxical) priority of “the Jew,” and the revelation of the righteousness of God anticipates the content of his following argument and implicitly urges the acknowledgement of the human state which he subsequently describes.[6]

_______________________________________
[1] For an extensive and balanced introduction to the key issues/debates surrounding the NPP, I would highly recommend “The Paul Page.” 
[2] See his article, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Consciousness of the West,” in Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (London: SCM Press, 1976), 78-96.  
[3] Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison in Patters of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977).
[4] While some Jewish scholars are fine with this understanding of Paul in relation to 1st century Judaism, there are still some (non-Jewish) scholars who are not comfortable with this understanding.  A key figure supportive of the view is Jacob Neusner (“Comparing Judaisms,” History of Religions 18 [1978-79]: 177-91); and a key figure opposed to the view is Peter O’Brien (“Was Paul a Covenantal Nomist?”, in Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul [eds., D.A. Carson, Peter T. O'Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004], 249-96).
[5] “Mistakes of the New Perspective on Paul,” Themelios 26.3 (2001): 1-11.  I have not found anyone who has responded to Zahl’s argument in this article, which is partly the reason I am offering my response here in this post.  
[6] Mark A. Seifrid, “Unrighteous by Faith: Apostolic Proclamation in Romans 1.18–3.20,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul, 105–emphasis original.

Hi all,

This will be my first book review:) For two reasons I decided to do this, one, I enjoy to read reviews myself before considering a book and two I think Ill be able to read more systematically books and remember more of what I read.

Author: E.P. Sanders

Title: The Historical Figure of Jesus

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1993

Pages: 337

In the introduction Sanders presents the reader with his aims in the study “I shall discuss Jesus the human being, who lived in a particular time and place, and I shall search for evidence and propose explanations just as does any historian when writing about a figure of history” (2).

Sanders presents the reader with a short summary of Jesus’ life and he does this in a way that made me pause to consider how brief Jesus’ appearance has been. After a period of teaching in the Galilee he goes over to Jerusalem for Pesach, “he created a disturbance in the Temple area; he had a final meal with the disciples; he was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities, specifically the high priest; he was executed on the order of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate” (11).

The first 5 chapters are mainly an introduction to the background of Jesus’ ministry; 2. Outline of Jesus Life, 3. Political Setting, 4. Judaism as a Religion, 5. External Sources and 6. The Problems of the Primary Sources.

In chapter 4, he gives mostly based on his previous work Judaism: Practice and Belief, of what he calls the basic elements of Judaism of the 2nd Temple period: 1. Monotheism, 2. The divine election and the law and 3. Repentance, punishment and forgiveness. He points out that the Torah, “brings the entirety of life, including civil and domestic practices, under the authority of G’d” (37) and gives some examples of this and says: “Judaism elevated all of life to the same level as worship of G’d” (38). Which has given me some thoughts about Noachidism, as this element seems absent therein, and would therefore seem to be lacking the power to sanctify the believers life in all areas, as the Torah is capable of in the life of a Jew.

In the sixth chapter he throws in some Biblical Criticism, which is not my favourite subject, but I must say he points out some contradictions that I hadnt seen earlier and to my dismay his argumentation with examples from the text is quite difficult to negate. In the seventh chapter he continues with this and shows some of what he calls the ‘creativity’ of the gospel authors, and again is quite good at making his case.

In chapter eight and nine Sanders talks about the environment in which Jesus worked and tries to move from the gospels back to the historical Jesus, and does this again mainly through Biblical Criticism, he proposes that the temptation narratives are legendary and mythological  but thinks it reasonable to assume that Jesus indeed withdrew to fast before his ministry, a quote that I found problematic “parallels made clear how the authors of the gospels, and possibly previous authors or editors, arranged pericopes and linked them in order to produce a narrative” (131). Although this does not invalidate the NT, it does in my opinion, devaluate it, and makes it kind of less authorative, and maybe this is the reason that people who hold such views, but want to be Christians, grant great authority to church tradition.

Chapter ten, concerns the miracles and here Sanders introduces the sage Hanina ben Dosa and also Honi the Circledrawer. I knew about these but hadnt read before why Honi was called the Circledrawer; when praying for rain without effect he drew a circle and stood in it and said: ”O L’rd of the world, your children have turned their faces to me, because I am like a son of the house before thee. I swear by your great name that I will not stir hence until you have pity on your children” (139). Whereupon it began to sprinkle, wanting more he prayed: “Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain of goodwill, blessing and graciousness” (139). Whereupon the heavens burst open and it rained heavily:)

He explains that its “an error to think that in Jesus’ own day his miracles were taken as proving partial or full divinity” (135).

In chapter eleven up to thirteen, Sanders takes up the main topic of Jesus’ discourses; The Kingdom. He notes the various meanings this conveyed and tries to distill which one fit Jesus’ best. In the end he concludes that although Jesus had views about social, political and economic conditions, nevertheless “his mission was to prepare them to receive the coming kingdom of G’d” (188) and this would mainly be “G’d’s rule on earth”.

In chapter 12 he writes about the Gentiles and the kingdom and puts forth the idea that many of the stories in the narratives where Jesus interacts and/or speaks with Gentiles are tainted by the authors of the gospels as they “favoured the mission to the Gentiles, and they would have included all the pro-Gentile material that they could” (192).

From chapter 14 onwards it gets more interesting as he starts asking questions like, “what led to Jesus’ crucifixion?” and “what was Jesus view of his role?”.  Rightly he points out that it wasnt his disagreements over the interpretation/application of the Torah, as “Pharisees disagreed among themselves over more serious issues, and Pharisess and Sadducees disagreed more sharply yet” (216). As for Jesus’ encounter with opposition, Sanders puts that the responses by his opponents are “disproportionate to his behaviour” (213). And he argues that what we see here is ‘retrojection’; “Later disputes have been thrust back into the lifetime of Jesus. [Because] the Later Christian Church, or at least sections of it, did disagree with the Pharisees and their successors, the rabbis, about the law” (217). Evidence for this he sees especially in Mark’s gospel where the reader “is invited to believe that a series of good deeds by Jesus led the Pharisees to want to kill him. He argues that “this is intrinsically improbable, and it is disproved by the subsequent history; [as] when the crunch actually came, the Pharisees had nothing whatever to do with his death” (218).

He makes a comment on Jesus’ attitude to sinners and puts forth the idea that Jesus was not a preacher of repentance. He cites for his argument the number of times the word repentance is found in the gospels and concludes that the evidence is showing that there is a much bigger emphasis on the kingdom and of the many times we see the word repentance its found in Luke and in Acts, which Sanders sees as Luke’s own emphasis. But I cannot agree with this idea, and would posit that if the idea of the kingdom is G’ds rule on earth, this would imply the need for repentance as theres no other way to cope with G’ds rule. Sanders says “although he did not oppose the law, he did indicate that what was most important was accepting him and following him” (236). Which makes me wonder again, what the difference really is, if Jesus observed the Torah, then wouldnt following him, of necessity imply Torah-observance for the Jewish hearers present?

Chapter fifthteen is on Jesus’ view of his role in G’d’s plan, Sanders points out two things, one, Jesus was an “autonomous prophet; that is, his authority (in his own view and that of his followers) was not mediated by any human organization, not even by scripture” (238), two, he claimed to have an “immediate relationship to G’d, in the strict sense of ‘unmediated’” (239). Sanders discusses the titles Messiah and Son of G’d. And I think its good that he points out that “all Jews were ‘Sons of G’d'” (243). And when applied to a particular person “would imply special standing before G’d and an unusual power to accomplish good” (243) but certainly not a hybrid.

Upon turning to the title Son of Man, it pleased me to see that he explained the figure in Daniel 7:1-14 as the nation Israel or its angelic representative.

Sanders’ own term for Jesus self concept is ‘viceroy’; “G’d was king, but Jesus represented Him and would represent Him in the coming kingdom” (249).

The last chaper is about Jesus’ last week wherein he tries to answer the question why the high priest arrested Jesus.

He talks about how Jesus’ actions around the Temple were seen by some as threatening and proposes the idea that this was mainly what led to his arrest, the actions at the Temple coupled with his prediction that the Temple would be destroyed. He briefly discusses two other theories; 1. Caiaphas and Pilate thought he was about to start a military campaign against the Roman army. 2. Theological differences were what led to his arrest; Jesus “believed in love and compassion, ideas that the Pharisees abominated, and he disagreed with petty legalism and ritualism, which they favoured” (268).  He quickly dismisses these and in response to the second theory repeats that “there is no reason at all to think that they were in conflict about love, mercy and grace” (268). In his view, “Jesus opposed Pharisaic views about what produce counted as foodstuff and should be tithed (Matt. 23.23), but such criticisms as these were not matters of life and death” (269).

He goes into detail on Jesus’ reply to Caiaphas’ question whether he was the son of the Blessed and notes the difference in answers when comparing the gospels; Mark: Yes, Matthew: You have said so, Luke: You say that I am. In this Sanders sees the activity of the church saying “some early Christians wanted to attribute his death to confessing the christology of the church” (270). I dont know about that, as in my view son of the Blessed does not indicate anything of high christology, but who knows.

He wraps up by saying: “The high priest had him arrested because of his action against the Temple, and that was the charge against him. The testimony was thrown out of court because the witnesses did not say the same things. The high priest, however, had decided that Jesus had to die, and so he was not willing to drop the case. He asked Jesus to say something about himself, and then he cried ‘blasphemy’, rending his garments… the high priest had already made up his mind” (271).

In the epilogue, he discusses briefly the resurrection and but quite carefully and shows the difficulty in describing what they were experiencing, something that did not fit into the known categories; ghost and resusciated corpses.

He ends by saying: “We know who he was, what he did, what he taught, and why he died. Perhaps most important, we know how much he inspired his followers, who sometimes themselves did not understand him, but who were so loyal to him that they changed history” (281).

While not strictly about Galatians, E. P. Sanders was presented with a Festschrift at SBL this past week. More information is available from the publisher, although for a list of articles you must head over to WorldCat.

Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders. Edited by Fabian E. Udoh, et al. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. 448pp. 0268044538, 9780268044534.

If you don’t know what the New Perspective on Paul is read this article from Credenda/Agenda. Importantly, the New Perspective denies that Paul’s focus was on the individual’s relationship to God; that Judaism was a religion of merit; and that Judaism did not resolve Paul’s burden of guilt.

I converted to the New Perspective on Paul about two years back due to the writings of Bishop Tom Wright. What confirmed it was reading Galatians over and over again. I couldn’t make the traditional reading of Galatians fit with the text. I remember reading Wright echoing something similar. He could make the Reformational/Cranfield reading work with Romans, but not with Galatians. Paul’s concern in Galatians does seem to be with Jewish Christians forcing Gentile Christians to observe the Mosaic law, but does that necessarily imply works-righteousness? Tom Wright says not really. And there’s something to this point. Tim Gallant has pointed out that if the old Reformation reading of Galatians is correct, Paul argued incorrectly. He should have argued against the Galatians attitude towards circumcision instead of arguing against circumcision per se.

I still think the New Perspective reading of Galatians is correct, but I noticed a flaw in it last night. Galatians 4:8-11 reads:

8Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? 10You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! 11I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

According to Tom Wright, Paul is referencing Judaism here. The weak and miserable principles are the Mosaic covenant (see v.10). Paul always has eschatology in mind when writing, and he sees that post-cross / resurrection, the Mosaic covenant has been fulfilled. To return to it is to ignore what God has done – creating one universal family defined by faith and not by Torah. So far so good.

Now look at verse 8. Paul is clear that those to whom he is speaking did not know God before they placed their faith in Christ. This is easy exegesis from an old perspective Reformation reading. Certain Jews thought they could merit God’s favour by trusting in their obedience to Torah.

A new perspective reading is much more difficult. How can Paul say that those Jews did not know God before Christ? What was keeping them from Him if it wasn’t works righteousness?

This is an honest question. I’m not sure where to go from here.

How much of the Gospel accounts about Jesus are historical?  What actually happened in Jesus’ life and what was the invention of the Gospel writers?  E.P. Sanders says in his book The Historical Figure of Jesus, “The clearest cases of invention are in the birth narratives.” (p. 85)  Sanders then goes on to describe a number of descrepencies between the accounts of Matthew and Luke to demonstrate that they are inventions by the evangelists.  First of all, we must remember that our job is not to prove that the Gospels pass the standards of 21st century historical method.  These are first century historical accounts and they are completely in line with those standards.  I won’t go through every one of Sanders objections but I will mention one.  Sanders says that is very unlikely that Joseph would have to go back to Bethlehem, the home of his ancestor David, because Joseph would have had millions of ancestors.  Why pick this one?  Well, King David is not just any ancestor.  Part of Joseph’s identity would be in his belonging to the line of David.  Also, the word for inn does not have to mean an inn in our modern sense.  It could just as easily have been the family home.  Perhaps Joseph was originally from Bethlehem and his family was still living there.  Because so much of the family had returned to the home there was no room for Joseph and Mary.  Joseph was just going back where he was born and had originally lived before moving to Nazareth.

Again, I want to stress that our job is not to prove that every verse of the Bible fits with every other verse but rather to determine what actually happened with Jesus.  Was there a virgin birth?  To determine if there is a historical event behind a narrative, we like to see at least two independent accounts.  We have to watch with the Gospels because we know that Matthew and Luke used Mark.  Just because the same event is described in the same way in all three does not mean that we have three sources, in those cases we likely only have one and that is Mark’s.  How does the virgin birth fit into this?  When we examine Matthew and Luke’s accounts, we quickly see that this is not a copying of the same account.  These are two separate and independent traditions about the virgin birth, one focusing on Joseph and the other on Mary.  This is exactly what we want to see in making a historical judgment.

So where did the virgin birth traditions come from?  Some critics suggest that the evangelists constructed a life of Jesus by compiling various Old Testament texts and putting it in a historical framework.  Matthew 1:23 quotes Isaiah 7:14 about a virgin giving birth and so perhaps that was the inspiration for the whole tradition.  The problem is that the Hebrew word for virgin is almah which is more properly ‘young woman.’  While most young women would have been virgins, the point is that the Jews were not sitting around waiting for a virgin to give birth to the Messiah, it was not a part of their expectations.  What seems to have happened is that a tradition about Jesus being born to a virgin already existed and Matthew wanting to show how Jesus fit with the Old Testament found the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) version where almah is translated into parthenos or virgin.  So in this case, the historical tradition came before the Scriptural proof.

Others look for a pagan origin.  The Roman author Suetonius describes the Emperor Augustus as being conceived when his mother was in the temple of Apollo.  Therefore, the evangelists are trying to set Jesus as the true Lord in comparison to the Roman lord Augustus.  The problem is that Suetonius was born in 69 AD and that the Gospels were long written by the time he wrote The Twelve Caesars. We also know that Suetonius was aware of the Christians and wrote about them.  Who influenced who?  Other attempts at pagan origins include Horus and Mithra.  Mithra was born from a rock, which I suppose is a virgin, but far from the idea in the Gospels.  Horus was conceived when Isis had sexual intercourse with her dead husband Osiris.  Not exactly a virgin birth!

While there are details in the accounts of Matthew and Luke that we do not understand, the best explanation is that they were recording two independent traditions about Jesus’ virgin birth that went back to a historical event.

It lies beyond my meagre abilities as an interpreter of dogmatic theology to explain how it is possible for one person to be 100 per cent human and 100 per cent divine, without either interfering with the other.[1]

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 [1] E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin Books, 1993) p.134